Remembering Colonia Dignidad

Former Nazi Paul Schäfer, former leader of the cult-like Colonia Dignidad, has been arrested in Argentina and deported to Chile. He has a long history of running from the law:

A German Army nurse during World War II, Schaefer became the head of the Social Private Mission, a religious foundation in Siegburg, a town near Bonn, during the 1950s. The institution was a charitable organization ostensibly to provide education and healthcare for orphans.

When he fled Germany following pedophilia charges, up to 200 members of the Social Private Mission gradually followed him to Chile, where he became the head of a similar foundation and was known as their "Permanent Uncle."

Throughout the years, people who have managed to flee the colony and locals have pointed at Colonia Dignidad as a center of abduction, forced labor and sexual abuse (See Today’s Feature)[sorry, no link, subscription required], and Chile's failure to locate and arrest Schaefer since democracy was restored in 1990 has been a nagging issue to the center-left Concertacion alliance government.

After the 1973 coup in which Augusto Pinochet took power, the colonists began to forge links with the military and, according to the Valech Report, Colonia Dignidad became a "detention and torture center" used by the DINA and the CNI, the secret police of the military government.

But the strong protection net around Schaefer has always kept him clear of the courts, and residents at the colony have not admitted to tortures until recently. Peter Müller, the new leader of Villa Baviera, recognized Sunday that torture took place inside the colony.

[Irene Caselli in the Santiago Times, citing EL MERCURIO, LA TERCERA, LA NACIÓN [I do not know how to permanently link these stories--select the current Schäfer story and you'll find links to many more recent reports], and RADIO COOPERATIVA.]

And here is a link to Deutsche Welle's coverage of the story. Deutsche Welle's slowly-spoken German newscasts have been mentioning Colonia Dignidad and Paul Schäfer since Friday. I remember Nazi-watcher Mae Brussell [some would call her a conspiracy theorist] criticizing this group for torture and abductions in the mid-1980s. What does it mean when 'kooky conspiracy theorists' turn out to be right?

Among the thousands of people tortured and 'disappeared' by the Chilean government during Pinochet's reign was one American citizen-- Boris Weisfeiler:

There are more than 1,100 desaparecidos (disappeared persons) in Chile and one of them is a U.S. citizen - Boris Weisfeiler. A Russian-born mathematics professor at Pennsylvania State University, Weisfeiler vanished while on a hiking trip near the border between Chile and Argentina in the early part of January 1985. After a quick and cursory investigation, Chilean authorities concluded that Weisfeiler had drowned in the Nuble River during his trip.


Boris Weisfeiler vanished while on a hiking trip near the border between Chile and Argentina in the early part of January 1985.  

Declassified U.S. documents tell a different story. According to an informant, Weisfeiler was detained by Augusto Pinochet's soldiers, presumed to be a Russian or Jewish spy, and taken to the mysterious German colony Colonia Dignidad. The declassified U.S. documents show that the U.S. Embassy personnel did not do enough to ascertain the fate of Weisfeiler, the only missing U.S. citizen in Chile. As consul Jayne Kobliska stated more than a year after Weisfeiler's disappearance in a memo from April 1986, "the real danger in this case is that we will delay action until it is too late to either save Weisfeiler's life or to determine the true circumstances of his death."

Yet another case of the US government co-operating with covering up Nazi crimes in the interest of fighting Communism.

The Chilean government issued these stamps in 1976 to commemorate the third anniversary of the military coup that put Pinochet in power:

Another September 11 which lives in infamy. [I apologize for the poor condition of these stamps-definitely space fillers until I find better copies. Click for a larger image.] 
Note the Orwellian double-speak: a military dictatorship which jails, tortures and 'disappears' its opponents is glorified as breaking the chains of slavery and setting Chile free. [And what does that strange, nipple-less winged woman symbolize?]

This is a day of new beginnings,
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.

For by the life and death of Jesus,
God's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.

--Brian Wren
This is a day of new beginnings, 1978, alt.
(1st 2 verses)